About Electronic physician

Next update of the geographical distribution of contributors is scheduled to be published on this page in March 2019

Geographical distribution of contributors and types of articles published in Electronic Physician in 2009-2015

This report describes the international nature of the journal Electronic Physician (ISSN: 2008-5842). The journal established in 2008 and began to publish medical and health science research in 2009. The authors who submitted articles that were published in the first year (2009, Volume 1) were Indian scholars and two authors from Iran.

Consistent with the goal of publishing more international articles, the journal was introduced to academia in a step-by-step process that involved slow, but steady, progress. The number of articles published in the journal increased, and the geographical distribution of the authors, reviewers, editors, and other contributors expanded. In 2009, we published mostly editorials and original articles, but, in recent years, we have published the most common types of contributions, including original articles, systematic reviews, meta analyses, case reports, editorials, research letters and letters to the editor (LTE), traditional reviews, mini-review articles, conference abstracts, hypotheses and ideas, news reports, interviews, short communications, and brief reports.

The list below shows each country's share of authors, reviewers, and editors from October 2009 to August 2015. Also, the map (Figure 1) shows that we did attract contributions from all of the inhabited continents of the world. Data were derived from our archives of full-text papers and conference abstracts published in the journal, as well as from the lists of all reviewers, technical editors, language editors, and conference editorial teams who contributed to the work we published from October 2009 to August 2015.

The largest numbers of contributors were from Iran, Malaysia, and India, but the geographical origins of the contributors are shown on the map below, and the home countries are listed in alphabetical order, as follows:

Next update of the comprehensive statistics is scheduled to be published on this page in March 2019

In June 2015, the journal conducted a research on the statistics of the time periods between ‘submission to acceptance’ of manuscripts and ‘acceptance to publication’ of manuscripts in past years. The records and archives of the journal were checked, and only the records for 2014 and 2015 were included in this research due to the lack of availability of comparable information in the earlier years.

According to the data obtained from all of the valid information about our published articles during 2014 and 2015, the mean time between the submission and acceptance of a manuscript was 96 days, which became 78 days after the outliers were removed. However, in the first half of 2015 (January through June, Issues 1 and 2), the mean time was reduced significantly to 71 days, which became 39 days after removing the outliers.

In 2014, the mean time between acceptance and publication of a manuscript was 35 days, which became 32 days after removing the outliers. In 2015, the mean time was 59 days, which became 55 days after removing the outliers.

According to our data, the main factor that determines the time between submission and acceptance is the time the authors use to prepare the revisions of their manuscript based on the comments and suggestions of our reviewers. However, there were two main factors that determined the time between acceptance and publication of manuscripts in 2014 and 2015, i.e., 1) the time authors take to revise their manuscripts based on our English editor's suggestions and comments and to revise the reference section based on input from our quality control technicians and 2) the limited number of issues published each year, which currently is four issues.

Research Reporting Guidelines and Supporting Documents for Authors are available to download. Click here to download CONSORT template and checklist, STROBE statement, PRISMA Checklist, MOOSE checklist and other resources for preparing and reporting clinical trials, observationbal studies, case reports, systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

OPEN ACCESS POLICY AND REDISTRIBUTION

Electronic physician is an open access journal, which means that all articles are available on the internet to all users immediately upon publication. Our articles our published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

AUTHOR GUIDELINE

1. Types and scope of articles:

Electronic Physician is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes original articles, reviews (traditional reviews and systematic reviews), Meta-analyses, case reports and other common types of articles related to all areas of basic and clinical medical sciences and all disciplines of health sciences. Editorials, letters to the editor, opinions, and other short articles are also welcomed. Topics of interest include all subjects that relate to the practice of medicine and the betterment of public health worldwide. Commencing on January 2018, the following research designs have the highest chance of being published in our journal:

1) Meta-analyses

2) Randomized Controlled Trials

3) Prospective Cohort studies

4) Systematic-reviews with high impact on great policy makings of health and clinical practice

5) Matched case-control studies

6) Rare and unique Case-Reports, and those case-reports with high value in education of clinical science

2. Manuscript preparation:

The "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts (URM) Submitted to Biomedical Journals" is incorporated into our review and publication process. Please visit http://www.icmje.org for more details. You are encouraged to prepare the reference section of the manuscript using the standard introduced by URM. Please click here to download the template of the manuscript. Authors should use the template to prepare their manuscript, especially the font, the size of the font, list of authors, references, acknowledgment section, and other instructions in the template file. The authors are advised to use the standard checklists for presenting their research. A list of supporting documents for CONSORT 2010 (Randomized Controlled Trials), CARE checklist (case reports), PRISMA checklist, STROBE, STARD, MOOSE and SPIRIT checklists are available here.

3. Research ethics and publication ethics:

Electronic Physician is a member of, and subscribes to the principles of, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Electronic Physician has zero tolerance for academic misconduct, including "Duplicate Publication," "Salami Publication," "Plagiarism", "Fake Submissions", "Ghost Authorship", "Fabrication of Data", and "Fake External Reviewer Suggestions". All manuscripts are investigated thoroughly regarding any potential unethical conduct. All of the required documents about the research (clinical trial registration ID, research ethics approval, authorization letter for publishing case reports, etc.) are required. Regarding the plagiarism, all submissions will be checked for potential copy-paste jobs using iThenticate.

4. References:

References should be written in compliance with the ‘Citing Medicine, 2nd edition: The NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers’ published by National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health (Aailable from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256 ). Some authors do not use correct abbreviations for journals. Please use the abbreviations of the titles of journals in the reference section. For more information, visit the ISSN website at http://www.issn.org/2-22661-LTWA-online.php and the National Library of Medicine at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256/ (Look at the appendix section of that page for abbreviation of journals) for further details. The correct abbreviations for journals also can be found at the journals’ websites. Please add PubMed PMID (or PubMed central PMCID) of articles (if the references appear in Pubmed), and add the digital object identifier (DOI) or the URL (in the DOI system) if the reference has a DOI. Visit the following link to search the PMIDs and DOIs of articles: http://www.crossref.org/SimpleTextQuery (This link provides doi for those journal articles that use CrossRef doi service, therefore there are many articles with DOI, but not available on Crossref).

5. Expected time required for the peer-review process:

Authors can expect to receive the first round of reviewers' comments and the initial result of their submissions within 3-6 months for routine submissions, and within 3-10 weeks for fast Track submissions (depending on the availability of expert reviewers).

In 2017, a large number of authors received a considerable discount in their publication fee. In 2018, the journal planned a procedure in which we could encourage more authors to use our new scheme for a waiver of the publication fee. On first step, authors from Low-Income Countries publish their article free of charges, and from April 2019, all of authors from Middle-Income Countries will publish their articles free of charges. The rest of authors, even those from high-Income Countries, also can apply for considerable discount or a waiver of publication fee. Click here to read more about our new scheme for a waiver of the publication fee.

Electronic Physician is a member of, and subscribes to the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The COPE’s code of conduct guidelines are available at: http://www.publicationethics.org

Electronic Physician has zero tolerance for academic misconduct, including "Duplicate Publication," "Salami Publication," "Plagiarism", "Fake Submissions", "Ghost Authorship", "Fabrication of Data", and "Fake External Reviewer Suggestions". All manuscripts are investigated thoroughly regarding any potential unethical conduct. All of the required documents about the research (clinical trial registration ID, research ethics approval, authorization letter for publishing case reports, etc.) are required. Regarding the plagiarism, all submissions will be checked for potential copy-paste jobs using iThenticate.

Part A. Editor’s Responsibilities:

A.1. Publication decisions

Editor-in-Chief of the journal is responsible for deciding which of the manuscripts should be published. Editors and reviewers treat all manuscripts as confidential documents do not show to or discussed with others except if authorized by the editor.

A.2. Fair play

The editor evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to the nature of the authors or the host institution including race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

A.3. Confidentiality

The editors and editorial staff must not disclose any information about manuscripts to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, and other editorial advisers as appropriate. In the case of a misconduct investigation, the editor-in-chief may disclose material to third parties (e.g., an institutional investigation committee or other editors).

A.4. Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's own research.

A.5. Corrections

When genuine errors in published work are pointed out by readers, authors, or editors, a correction will be published as soon as possible. If the error renders the work or substantial parts of it invalid, the paper should be retracted with an explanation as to the reason for retraction.

A.6. Ensuring the integrity of the published record

If serious concerns are raised by readers, reviewers, or others, about the conduct, validity, or reporting of academic work, the editor-in-chief will initially contact the authors and allow them to respond to the concerns. If that response is unsatisfactory, the journal will take this to the institutional level. In cases when concerns are very serious and the published work is likely to influence clinical practice or public health, the journal may consider informing readers about these concerns, while the investigation is ongoing. Once an investigation is concluded the journal will publish comment that explains the findings of the investigation. Editor-in-chief may decide to retract a paper if a serious misconduct has happened even if an investigation by an institution or national body does not recommend it.

Part B. Reviewers’ responsibilities:

B.1. Contribution to Editorial Decisions

Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper. Reviewers are expected to provide constructive comments on the manuscript that help the author(s) to revise the manuscript in higher standards and quality.

B.2. Promptness

Reviewers that feel unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

B.3. Confidentiality

The reviewers should treat as confidential document any manuscripts received for review. They manuscript should not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.

B.4. Standards of Objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

B.5. Acknowledgement of Sources

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

B.6. Disclosure and Conflict of Interest

Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

B.7. Reviewer misconduct

Electronic physician will take reviewer misconduct seriously and pursue any allegation of breach of confidentiality, non-declaration of conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial), inappropriate use of confidential material, or delay of peer review for competitive advantage.

Pat C. Authors responsibilities:

C.1.Reporting standards

Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

C.2. Data Access and Retention

Authors are asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

C.3. Originality and Plagiarism

Electronic physician checks the originality of the manuscripts by iThenticate and presents the “Similarity Report” to the authors. Authors should ensure that submitted work is original and has not been published elsewhere in any language, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others that this has been appropriately cited or quoted. Applicable copyright laws and conventions should be followed. Copyright material (e.g. tables, figures or extensive quotations) should be reproduced only with appropriate permission and acknowledgement.

C.4. Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication

Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

C.5. Acknowledgement of Sources

Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work.

C.6. Authorship of the Paper

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors recommends the authorship criteria at: http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html

C.7. Individual and organizational acknowledgments:

All of the individuals or organizations that made a contribution to the work but they do not meet the criteria for authorship, should be acknowledged in the acknowledgments section of the manuscript. The corresponding author should not acknowledge any individual or organization without a written permission.

C.8. Hazards

If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript.

C.9. Reporting of research involving humans or animals

Appropriate approval, licensing or registration should be obtained before the research begins and details should be provided in the report (e.g. Institutional Review Board, Research Ethics Committee approval, national licensing authorities for the use of animals). If requested by editors, authors should supply evidence that reported research received the appropriate approval and was carried out ethically (e.g. copies of approvals, licenses, participant consent forms). Researchers should not generally publish or share identifiable individual data collected in the course of research without specific consent from the individual (or their representative).

C.10. Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

C.11. Fundamental errors in published works

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

For all of the information and guidance concerning the preparation of manuscripts, Research Reporting Guidelines, and Review Process, please click here to visit "Guide to Authors".

Since Some authors prefer to submit manuscripts by email and some are not familiar with the online submission system, we may accept submissions by email or By Online Submission System. In the first case, our technical personnel will enter the details and files associated with the manuscript into the online submission system for the authors.

Important news (October 2018) for Online Submission:

This is to announce that the journal is planning to replace its current user interface and its old online manuscript submission system to "Scholar One", a product of "Clarivate Analytics". So, until the next update (Around February 2019) the authors are required to submit the manuscripts only by email. However, our previous online submission system is available at the following link (Please submit by email at this moment not by online submission system):

http://my.ejmanager.com/ep

Please send the manuscript and required files to the editor In-chief at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and c.c it to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

When an author submits a manuscript, the following 3-6 files must be attached (based of the manuscript type, but the first three files are mandatory for all submissions):

1. Cover letter:

Please click here to download a sample cover letter. In the cover letter, you must state that the manuscript, in whole or in part, has not been published by and will not be submitted for publication in any other journal. If your manuscript has been published elsewhere in another language, please indicate this in the cover letter.

The author must provide complete contact information, i.e., postal/mail address, e-mail address, and telephone number. Also, the first and last names, e-mail addresses, and institutional affiliations of all co-authors must be provided. Please include the first and last names of all authors in the cover letter. Please ensure that you have written all of the affiliations separately along with the correct email addresses of all authors. In writing the affiliations, please consider the following items for each of the authors: latest degree (for example MD or PhD of Public Health or M.Sc. of Microbiology, etc.), academic position (if they have one, for example Assistant Professor, Lecturer, etc.), name of department (for example Department of Environmental Health, Department of Neurology), name of faculty or school (for example Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Public Health), and research institute, name of the university, name of city, and name of country. Regarding the email addresses of the authors, please provide us with both academic email (if they have one) and the general email addresses (e.g. gmail, yahoo mail, etc.) for each author.

2. Manuscript (Without any information about authors):

The manuscript must include the title of the paper, an Abstract (250 words or less for original articles, 200 words or less for reviews, and 150 words or less for case reports), three to five Keywords (chosen from MeSH), and the body of the manuscript without any information regarding the names of the authors. Abstracts are not required for Letters to the Editor, Opinions, and Editorials.

Please include all of the tables in the manuscript file. Graph files must be attached to the email separately. The acceptable file formats are ".doc" for texts and ".tiff,” “.jpg,” and “.jpeg” for graphs, plates, artwork, and photos. Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to publish any figures or illustrations that are protected by copyright, including figures published elsewhere and pictures taken by professional photographers. We will not publish images downloaded from the Internet without permission.

3. Conflict of Interest (COI):

All submissions must be accompanied by a completed Conflict of Interest (COI) form and clearly stating the source of funds and any potential conflict of interest.

Please read the COI form carefully, print out the second page, and fill the second page, which must then be signed by all authors. Then, make a simple camera photo of the second page and send it to the journal.

4. Research Ethics Approval:

Please submit a copy of the approval letter of the Research Ethics Committee, if your manuscript is written based on an original research involving humans, which needs to consider research ethics.

5. Ethics of Case Report:

If the manuscript is a case report, please submit an approval letter from the hospital / university, in which they clearly state that the authors are allowed to publish the result of that case report and the patient has authorized them to publish the analysis of their medical records anonymously. Usually, when a patient attends a hospital or clinic, they read and sign a form that allows the institute to use their data anonymously for the progress of the medical science. So, any approval letter from the institute / hospital that states such things are accepted.

6. Clinical Trial Registration:

If the manuscript is based on a clinical trial, please also mention the website address and the unique clinical trial registration ID for the study.

Suggestion of External Reviewers

Please propose us 2-3 external reviewers who are expert on the area of the manuscript. They should not be from the same department as the authors and must not have a conflict of interest with them. Please provide their full name, their email addresses, and their highest degree or academic position. The journal will use the opinions of well-known experts on the submissions; however, the journal may also consider the opinions of external reviewers. The journal is free to consider any of the suggested external reviewers for this submission and use their opinions on other submission.

Attention (zero tolerance to fake external reviewers):

Since some authors in the past have suggested non authentic external reviewers, it is important for us to know the academic email addresses of the suggested external reviewers, so that the journal’s IT experts can identify them and also to ensure there is no unethical behavior.

Research Reporting Guidelines:

The authors are advised to use the standard checklists for presenting their research. A list of supporting documents for CONSORT 2010 (Randomized Controlled Trials), CARE checklist (case reports), PRISMA checklist, STROBE, STARD, MOOSE and SPIRIT checklists are available here.

Expected time required for the peer-review process:

Authors can expect to receive the first round of reviewers' comments and the initial result of their submissions within 3-6 months for routine submissions, and within 3-10 weeks for fast Track submissions (depending on the availability of expert reviewers).

Monitoring the progress of the manuscript:

Since the journal is moving to a new online submission (Scholar One, a product of Clarivate Analytics), please use email to check the status of the manuscript for the temporary period (October 2018 to February 2019) that we are moving from the current online manuscript submission system to the new one. To monitor the progress of your manuscript, please email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Be sure to include the manuscript ID number and send a copy of the e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Current Issue

In the first issue of the journal Electronic Physician for 2019, we have several papers including three Randomized Controlled Trials, an in-vitro experimental study, a systematic review and meta-analysis, two instrument development studies, two case reports, and several original articles from Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Jordan. Read more...

The 6th World Conference on Research Integrity (WCRI) is to be held on June 2-5, 2019 in Hong Kong.

The WCRI is the largest and most significant international conference on research integrity. Since the first conference in Lisbon in 2007, it has given researchers, teachers, funding agencies, government officials, journal editors, senior administrators, and research students opportunities to share experiences and to discuss and promote integrity in research. Read more:

Meta-Analysis Workshops in New York, USA, and London, UK, in April and May 2019

Don't miss this exceptional opportunity to learn how to perform and report a Meta-analysis correctly. Two Meta-analysis workshops are organized in April and May 2019 by Dr. Michael Borenstein in New York, USA (April 08-10, 2019) and London, UK (May 27-29).

About the Instructor

Dr. Michael Borenstein, one of the authors of Introduction to Meta-Analysis, is widely recognized for his ability to make statistical concepts accessible to researchers as well as to statisticians. He has lectured widely on meta-analysis, including at the NIH, CDC, and FDA. Read more: